29 April 2007

or, friends don't teach friends who have addictive personalities how to knit.

the majority of my research in the last few days should serve to help me write papers on learning to knit. the only intellectual work i've actually accomplished in the last few days is listening to vendredis de la philosophie and audiobooks on nietzsche while knitting. unfortunately, this is not exactly what one could call a hot topic in french lit, and will most likely be unacceptable to the venerable professors overseeing my doctoral life.

so this is what the researchliness looks like:

i acquired some fugly cheapo acrylic yarn. since i learned to knit on some really nice cotton yarn, it's amazing how much harder it is to knit with shit yarn. however, it's handy since i want to acquire more skill before moving on with nice yarn projects. so, having taught myself how to purl, i learned how to integrate knit stitch and purl stitch into a pattern. this yields more squares:i'll be real happy when i can do something that involves a non-square shape. but what makes me feel better about squares is that there's a childrens' shelter that needs knit squares donated to make into friendly quilts. and since i'm training on squares, everyone wins. that's nice, huh?

i am also learning, very awkwardly, to create cable patterns. the quality of this picture is equal to the "quality" of the product:all of this learning, though, has convinced me to undo the eventual hand towel (a rectangle! woohoo.) that is destined to my friend katie for her birthday:i started purling (which is better than hurling) on that project: but now that i know how to create some border patrol, my perfectionist ass is undoing it all and starting over.

ignoring my budgetary concerns, i dropped 50 bucks at purl in soho on some seriously fierce yarn made by a womens' collective in uraguay and some nice circular needles. the point of this purchase was not to immediately make something with it, but mostly to inspire me to be worthy of using this yarn. it does have a vague future purpose that has something to do with matching the color scheme of a close friend. suggestions concerning the destiny of this yarn, and practical ways to make myself worthy of knitting it are welcome.

3 comments:

Woo! Look at you go... knitting away and all. I tried to learn how to knit about a year ago, but it hurt my wrists and I quickly got fed up with being so bad at it (wanting instant gratification and all). So I stopped. But I'm still very jealous of people who CAN knit so maybe some day I'll try again... love you Pony!

perhaps, my fiend, we shall have to have a knit-off. [drum roll] [accompanied by trumpets] (cause i like trumpets).margaux can be the referee. haha. in which case it would be a competition without competition. which makes it sound like some Derridean affair, so if Margaux could smoke a pipe during the procedures, all would be perfect (except our yarn would smell and the children would have smelly quilts).sorry, i have a paper to write so obviously i'm talking blinding shit here instead.farewell.